Apple was established on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne to sell the Apple 1 personal computer kit. They were hand-built by Wozniak and first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. The apple 1 was sold as a motherboard – less than what is today considered a complete personal computer. The apple 1 went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at $666.66. Apple was incorporated Jaan 3, 1977 without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800.

The apple 11 was introduced on April 16, 1977 at the first West Coast computer fair. It differed from its major rivals,, the TRS-8 and Commodore PET,because it came with color graphics and open architecture.

The company introduced the ill-fated Apple III in May 1980 in an attempt to compete with IBM and Microsoft in the business and corporate computing market.

In 1984, Apple next launched the Macintosh. Its debut was announced by the now famous $1.5 million television commercials “1984”. It was directed by Ridley Scott.

In 1985, a power struggle developed between Jobs and CEO John Sculley, who had been hired two years prior. The apple board of directors instructed Sculley to “contain” Jobs and limit his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products.Rather than submit to Sculley's direction, Jobs attempted to oust him from his leadership role at Apple. Sculley found out that Jobs had been attempting to organize a putsch and called a board meeting at which Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and removed Jobs from his managerial duties. Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Inc. the same year.